


Dulce et Decorum Est

by eugyne (AreteNike)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Based on a Poem, Canon Compliant, Chemical Weapons, Gen, Keith (Voltron) Whump, Voltron Whump Week 2017, Whump, graphic depiction of the effects of poison gas, trauma for everyone yaaay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-17 11:20:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11850510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreteNike/pseuds/eugyne
Summary: If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cudOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—My friend, you would not tell with such high zestTo children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie:Dulce et decorum estPro patria mori.-Wilfred Owen





	Dulce et Decorum Est

**Author's Note:**

> for whump week day 6: poison. highly recommend reading the poem first if you dont know it, its pretty short but this ficlet is heavily based on it.

The thing is, when the Olkari contacted them to say they'd developed a new weapon to use against the Galra, no one questioned it.

When they went to pick it up and were given a bag of small round things like bombs, no one questioned it. When they were told to throw them like grenades--when they were told they  _wouldn't hurt them,_  only the Galra, somehow, no one questioned it.

They distributed the Olkari Grenades, as Hunk called them, to each paladin. Not to the Blade of Marmora though, since apparently they could only hurt Galra. Kolivan didn't question it, either, though--nor did Keith.

Lance wonders now how no one could have questioned it. It's not as though any war convention held on Earth applies in space.

They brought the grenades to battle many times, but had never before had cause to use them--close quarters, or too much space between targets, no good opportunity for that kind of weapon. For the kind of weapon they thought it was.

The battlefield they find themselves on, now, is a swamp; they waded through the mud and sludge for far too long to get here, only to find themselves entrenched behind a massive tree root, huddled while Lance and Hunk took potshots at the Galra hardly fifty feet away, behind the next root.

"Maybe we should try out those grenades," Pidge had suggested, but it was Lance who threw one. It had sailed neatly over the roots, a perfect arc that landed directly into the midst of the Galra beyond.

And then, instead of an explosion, the air had erupted into green--pollen, thick and sweet-smelling, though little of it drifted back toward them yet. There were cries from beyond the roots, the kind that made them all shift uneasily at the sound. And the cloud grew and spread, blanketing them all in green fog.

And then Keith had coughed.

It was only then, with a sickening lurch, that Lance remembered Keith is part Galra. 

Pidge went pale--she's curled up against the root now, frozen, stricken. Keith is pale, too, and the fear twists his face as he fumbles to seal his helmet but he's choking, his hands are shaking. He stumbles at Lance and Lance catches him but he's shaking just as badly, watching as the poison spores take their toll. Hunk and Allura are yelling--calling Coran, the lions, anyone. 

"Lance," Keith chokes, scrabbling at the front of his armor. Lance stumbles back under his weight until his shoulders hit the root; they crumple to the ground together, and by some miracle when Lance reaches up he manages to activate Keith's visor.

But Keith is still coughing, spraying blood on the inside of his helmet, and it's too late and Lance doesn't know what to do. Keith's eyes roll up, white and blank and empty.

"The castle is here, we have to move!" Allura shouts, and in moments Hunk is scooping Keith up out of Lance's arms even as he shudders and jerks, and Allura is hauling Lance and Pidge both to their feet, dragging them stumblingly along. The mud drags them down and breathing is hard even when he's immune to the poison but all Lance can hear is the  _coughing,_  Keith wheezing for breath as blood fills his lungs and comes bubbling out.

Pidge is shaking as badly as Lance is, next to him, eyes wide and unseeing.

Hunk sets a bruising pace, pushing through the mud as fast as he can heedless of how his movements jolt Keith around. He pushes ahead, tailed by Allura, and Lance and Pidge fall behind much as they try to stumble after them.

Keith's twisted face is burned into the backs of Lance's eyelids. When he can't hear his coughing anymore he can't know if he hasn't--if he's still breathing.

Pidge stumbles and falls into the mud and doesn't get up. Lance heaves her up onto his back, and she silently wraps her arms around his shoulders.

By the time they reach the lions Hunk and Keith are already gone, their lions too. Blue waits above the marsh as Lance lets Pidge down. He doesn't quite register getting in Red, or the short trip up to the castle, but he's all too aware when they reconvene in the hangar and rush as one to the infirmary, heedless of the trail of mud they leave behind them.

Keith is already in a pod when they get there, still in his muddy armor--still with blood dripping slowly off his chin, face hollow and white. Shiro is there, eyes fixed on him, standing motionless next to Coran, who rubs Hunk's back as he heaves into a bucket.

"He'll be fine," Coran tells them, and Pidge lets out a squeak of a sob and crumples. Lance drops to his knees, too, there in the doorway, and Allura steps over them to join the others. The relief is as overwhelming as the guilt.

"We didn't know," Pidge chokes in a whisper as the rest murmur together. "Why didn't we know."

"We never asked," Lance hears himself say. "No one questioned it."

No one at all.

**Author's Note:**

> on tumblr [here](http://maternalcube.tumblr.com/post/164380521614/for-voltronwhumpweek2017-day-6-poison-this-is)


End file.
